Growing greener

Growing greener

Prysmian’s Headquarters in Milan received the prestigious LEED Platinum international certification with a score of 85/100. Highest marks obtained in three categories. The most sustainable building in the Italian capital of industry and finance.

Prysmian’s Milan headquarters were awarded the LEED Platinum international certification, which is the standard of reference in assessing environmentally friendly buildings, with regard to all aspects of their construction. The certification was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, a private membership-based non-profit organization that promotes sustainability in building design, construction and operation.

The 22,000 sqm building, located in the ‘Bicocca’ district of the Italian economic capital, scored 85/100 and obtained the highest marks in three categories: “Energy and Atmosphere”, “Water Efficiency” and “Innovation in Design”. To date, it is the most sustainable building in Milan and the second in Lombardy, which envisages the most technologically advanced solutions that are being adopted and implemented by the so-called smart cities around the world.

The Group inaugurated its headquarters in 2016 after three years of work. The building was designed by the architect Maurizio Varratta, who followed specific innovative architectural criteria and paid a strong attention to energy efficiency and sustainability, which are distinctive of smart cities planning a building criteria.

SMART WORKING AT THE CORE OF THE NEW STRUCTURE

In the new headquarters, Prysmian’s people can benefit from natural light, thanks to large glass windows, and move around surrounded by plants and water pools that help improve internal microclimatic conditions. Of course, smart working is the core of the HQ’s structure, as the building is designed to improve work and promote a sense of community through a network of carefully designed meeting rooms, open spaces and common areas.

Everything has been designed to encourage flexibility and productivity as well as to meet various working needs directly, such as team and remote working, in addition to providing spaces where people can concentrate or engage in informal interpersonal activities. Several ‘smart’ initiatives were launched for the 700 employees working in the Milan headquarters: the ‘Fruit Initiative’, for example, provides employees with fresh fruit twice a week; in addition, Prysmian refunds public transport fees to those employees who don’t take private non-sustainable transport to go to work. Energy consumption is sharply contained as well as the use of paper, artificial lighting is provided by variable-intensity LED illumination automatically regulated by sensors based on natural light levels that also detect the presence of people and shut off lights in empty open spaces and vacant meeting rooms. Plastic bottles are banned, electric car charging stations available.

A DRIVING FORCE OF STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE

With the new headquarters Prysmian wanted to promote a better integration between private and working lives by providing a better flexibility to working hours. “We are proud of this achievement which proves our real commitment in terms of sustainability and confirms the path followed by Prysmian in realizing such a milestone building, both on national and international level, a point of reference especially for its high environmental standards” commented Andrea Pirondini, Prysmian Group Chief Operating Officer. The LEED Platinum certification confirms once again that sustainability is a driver of strategic importance for Prysmian, as reported in the Sustainability Report 2017. Among reported results, to be mentioned the increase by 5.2% of the economic value generated and distributed in 2017 - compared to 2016 - reaching €7,866 million. In addition, ozone-depleting emissions decreased by 5%, as the Group confirmed its presence at the top of the main international sustainability indexes and assessments, including FTSE4Good, Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), Carbon Clean 200 and CDP Climate Change.

AT THE AVANT-GUARD ON THE SMART CITY FRONTIER

The new Prysmian headquarters help strengthen Milan’s strategic role as Italian avant-guard on the frontier of the development of the concept of smart city in the entire country and confirms the Group’s willingness to invest in innovation, digitalization and sustainability.